by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Growth, Leadership, Mindset, Tools
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 27 seconds
TODAY’S IDEA: Accountability is a Choice – Part 1
— From The 12 Week Year: Get More Done in 12 Weeks than Others Do in 12 Months by Brian Moran and Michael Lennington
“Accountability is perhaps the most misunderstood concept in business and in life,” say Brian P. Moran and Michael Lennington, authors of The 12 Week Year.
How so?
Moran and Lennington explain that when we hear the phrase to hold someone accountable, it’s usually in a negative context. Thus, we equate accountability with the negative consequences that are to follow due to some sort of poor performance or bad behavior.
They give the example of managers saying, “We need to do a better job of holding people accountable.” And they also give the example of individuals who, in their desire to perform better, have said, “I just need someone to hold me accountable.”
The problem, the authors state, is that “these types of statements reflect the mistaken notion that accountability is something that can and must be imposed; that’s not accountability, that’s consequences.”
I agree with them up to this point, but… What is accountability then?
“Accountability is not consequences, but ownership. It is a character trait, a life stance, a willingness to own your actions and results regardless of the circumstances.”
Then they go on to say that the essence of accountability is the notion that we all have freedom of choice. They explain it beautifully, so I will leave a small excerpt here for you:
“Freedom of choice [is] the foundation of accountability.
Accountability is the realization that you always have choice; that, in fact, there are no have-to’s in life. Have-to’s are those things we hate to do but do anyway because we have to… Everything we do in life is a choice. Even in an environment where there are requirements of you, you still have a choice, but there is a big difference when you approach something as a choose-to versus a have-to. When something is a have-to it’s a burden, it’s cumbersome, and, at best, you meet the minimum standards; however, the realization that you ultimately have a choice creates a very different scenario. When you choose to do something, you are able to tap your resources and give your best. It is a much more empowering stance. Ultimately, you choose your actions, your results, your consequences.”
ACTION
TODAY: Think of how you have been understanding accountability up to this point. Was it in the same negative context that the authors say? Now that you have a new perspective, what do you choose to do? What will you get to do? Here’s a post from last month that talks about reprograming your brain to enjoy what would otherwise be considered hard habits.
FUTURE: When you find yourself saying “I have to,” remember that you always have a choice. Embrace ownership and your mind will shift for the better.
Know someone who would like to read this post and change their perspective about accountability? Please share this post via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Creativity, Goals, Habits, Mindset, Miniseries, Planning, Time, Tools
Links to other parts of this miniseries:
New Habits: How to Ensure They Stick – Part 1
New Habits: How to Ensure They Stick – Part 2
New Habits: How to Ensure They Stick – Part 3
New Habits: How to Ensure They Stick – Part 4
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 56 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: New Habits: How to Ensure They Stick – Part 5
— From Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear
So far, in this miniseries we’ve been learning how to make new habits stick. Yet one of the things we haven’t talked about is how to stay focused on achieving your goals when you get bored.
James Clear, the author, recalls meeting an elite sports coach and asking him, “What’s the difference between the best athletes and everyone else? What do the really successful people do that most don’t?”
Clear remembers the coach answering first with the things you might expect: “genetics, luck, talent…” but then he said, “At some point it comes down to who can handle the boredom of training every day, doing the same lifts over and over and over.”
The coach’s answer surprised Clear, who had at that moment a shift in perspective:
“Mastery requires practice. But the more you practice something, the more boring and routine it becomes. […]
People talk about getting ‘amped up’ to work on their goals. Whether it’s business or sports or art, you hear people say things like, ‘It all comes down to passion.’ Or, ‘You have to really want it.’ As a result, many of us get depressed when we lose focus or motivation because we think that successful people have some bottomless reserve of passion. But this coach was saying that really successful people feel the same lack of motivation as everyone else. The difference is that they still find a way to show up despite the feelings of boredom. […]
The greatest threat to success is not failure but boredom. We get bored with habits because they stop delighting us. The outcome becomes expected. And as our habits become ordinary, we start derailing our progress to seek novelty. […] As soon as we experience the slightest dip in motivation, we begin seeking a new strategy—even if the old one was still working.”
So, what to do about boredom then?
You have to anticipate that it will happen and, when it does, accept it and welcome it into your life. Clear says, “You have to fall in love with boredom.”
There will be days when you don’t feel like doing your habit. And many others when you’ll think of not showing up, or not finishing, or quitting altogether, but “if you only do the work when it’s convenient or exciting, then you’ll never be consistent enough to achieve remarkable results.”
ACTION
TODAY: What habit are you bored with? How can you fall in love with that boredom? Go through a mental list of the immense benefits of sticking to it—despite the boredom—vs. quitting. Find that point where your mind shifts and you “fall in love with boredom,” that is, fall in love with the results. Perhaps instead of thinking “This is a great habit, BUT…” you can exchange the BUT for an AND to accept and welcome the boredom and the long-term results that sticking to the habit will bring.
FUTURE: With any habit, anticipate that boredom will occur. It’s not a matter of if, but when. Knowing what to expect will enable you to think of a plan and set up a rule to handle it. Take a look at this recent post from this miniseries on setting rules for guiding future behavior, and create your own: “When boredom strikes and I don’t feel like doing [YOUR HABIT], then I will [YOUR RULE].”
Know someone who is about to quit due to boredom? Please share this post with them via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Creativity, Goals, Habits, Mindset, Miniseries, Opportunity, Planning, Time, Tools
Links to other parts of this miniseries:
New Habits: How to Ensure They Stick – Part 1
New Habits: How to Ensure They Stick – Part 2
New Habits: How to Ensure They Stick – Part 3
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 11 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: New Habits: How to Ensure They Stick – Part 4
— From Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear
In the past three posts (1, 2, 3) we’ve been learning how to cue and stack our new habits to ensure we’re successful in making them last. Today, we will learn one more great technique from James Clear, habit guru, in his book Atomic Habits.
Clear tells the story of Ronan Byrne, an electrical engineering student in Ireland who knew he needed to exercise more but loved to binge-watch Netflix. Trying to connect these two seemingly opposite activities, he hacked his stationary bike in such a way that it would allow him to watch Netflix only if he was pedaling beyond a certain speed.
Clear says that what Byrne was doing is called temptation bundling, and this is a method to make the new habits we want to build more attractive and desirable. “Temptation bundling works by linking an action you want to do with an action you need to do,” and the latter may not always be something that’s easy or that you’re too keen on… “In Byrne’s case, he bundled watching Netflix (the thing he wanted to do) with riding his stationary bike (the thing he needed to do).”
“You’re more likely to find a behavior attractive if you get to do one of your favorite things at the same time. Perhaps you want to hear about the latest celebrity gossip, but you need to get in shape. Using temptation bundling, you could only read the tabloids and watch reality shows at the gym. Maybe you want to get a pedicure but you want to clean your email inbox. Solution: only get a pedicure while processing overdue work emails.”
Temptation bundling is one of the tactics used to apply a psychology theory known as Premack’s Principle. It states that “more probable behaviors will reinforce less probable behaviors,” thus we can condition ourselves to do the less probable or desirable behavior if it’s tied to doing something enjoyable and that we really want to do.
So far so good. Here’s where it gets better: What if we combine temptation bundling with habit stacking? Hmmmm, now we’re talking!
Clear gives us the formula to set the rules to guide our behavior and make our new habits stick:
- After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [HABIT I NEED].
- After [HABIT I NEED], I will [HABIT I WANT].
Here are some examples to illustrate it.
If you want to watch sports, but you need to make sales calls:
- After I get back from my lunch break, I will call three potential clients (need).
- After I call three potential clients, I will check ESPN (want).
If you want to check Facebook, but you need to exercise more:
- After I pull out my phone, I will do ten burpees (need).
- After I do ten burpees, I will check Facebook (want).
“The hope is that eventually you’ll look forward to calling three clients or doing ten burpees because it means you get to read the latest sports news or check Facebook. Doing the thing you need to do means you get to do the thing you want to do. […] Engineering a truly irresistible habit is a hard task, but this simple strategy can be employed to make nearly any habit more attractive than it would be otherwise.”
ACTION
TODAY: Make a list of things you need to do and one of the things you want to do. Crosscheck them for bundling opportunities.
FUTURE: Whenever you find yourself resisting something that you need to do, try pairing it with a very attractive opportunity to do something you want. The more anticipation you build the better and more motivated you’ll be to act.
Know someone who would benefit from temptation bundling to set up a new habit? Please share this post via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Creativity, Goals, Growth, Habits, Mindset, Miniseries, Planning, Productivity, Time, Tools
Links to other parts of this miniseries:
New Habits: How to Ensure They Stick – Part 1
New Habits: How to Ensure They Stick – Part 2
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 58 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: New Habits: How to Ensure They Stick – Part 3
— From Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear
In the two previous posts in this miniseries, we’ve learned how to use The Diderot Effect in a positive way to our advantage, and how to create a chain of new habits by stacking them all together.
Since the secret to success lies in the selection of the right cues to kick things off, today we’ll be talking all about cues.
First, as obvious as it may seem, it’s important to realize that the timing of the cue must be relevant and realistic to the new routine you want to create. James Clear writes:
“When and where you choose to insert a habit into your daily routine can make a big difference. If you’re trying to add meditation into your morning routine but mornings are chaotic and your kids keep running into the room, then that may be the wrong place and time. Consider when you are most likely to be successful. Don’t ask yourself to do a habit when you’re likely to be occupied with something else.”
Second, the frequency of the cue should be the same as of the new habit you want to instill. “If you want to do a habit every day, but you stack it on top of a habit that only happens on Mondays, that’s not a good choice.”
To find the right trigger for creating your new habit stack, the author suggests brainstorming a list of your current habits. You can download a free “Habit Scorecard” from his website, or simply create a list with two columns.
On the first column, you write the habits that you do every day, no matter what. For example, “get out of bed, take a shower, brush your teeth, get dressed, brew a cup of coffee, eat breakfast, take the kids to school, start the work day, eat lunch,” etc. Your list is going to be much longer than that, but you get where this is going.
On the second column, you write the things that happen to you always. For example, “the sun rises, you get a text message, the song you are listening to ends, the sun sets,” etc.
With your two-column list handy, then you can start looking for the best places to insert the cues to form your new habits. It’s important to note that the cue must be highly specific and immediately actionable, says Clear, otherwise, you run into ambiguity, which is certain to derail your habits. Let’s learn a lesson from the author:
“Many people set cues that are too vague. I made this mistake myself. When I wanted to start a push-up habit, my habit stack was ‘When I take a break for lunch, I will do ten push-ups.’ At first glance, this sounded reasonable. But soon I realized the trigger was unclear. Would I do my push-ups before I ate lunch? After I ate lunch? Where would I do them? After a few inconsistent days, I changed my habit stack to: ‘When I close my laptop for lunch, I will do ten push-ups next to my desk.’ Ambiguity gone.”
And there you have it. The more specific, precise, and clear on your cues and your instructions to act, the more the new habit will stick, as there won’t be room for inconsistency or confusion. “The specificity is important… After I close the door. After I brush my teeth. After I sit down at the table… The more tightly bound your new habit is to a specific cue, the better the odds are that you will notice when the time comes to act.”
Leave yourself no choice but to act in favor of establishing your new habits by setting up specific, timely, and relevant cues where they will give you the highest possibility of success.
So, what cue will you use to trigger the action for your new habit? Where will you stack it? Let me know in the comments here. As for myself, just as the author, I’m developing a push-up habit, so my cue will be “when I take a long break from my pomodoros, after setting the break time in my timer, I will do 12 push-ups right next to my desk.”
ACTION
TODAY: Make your two-column list of habits and things that happen so that you can figure out where you can insert your cues to trigger the new habit you want to build.
FUTURE: Set cues and stack habits where you will have the biggest possibility of success. Og Mandino said, “If I must be a slave to habit, let me be a slave to good habits.”
Know someone who would benefit from learning about cues and habit stacking? Please share this post via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Creativity, Goals, Growth, Habits, Mindset, Miniseries, Planning, Productivity, Tools
Links to other parts of this miniseries:
New Habits: How to Ensure They Stick – Part 1
New Habits: How to Ensure They Stick – Part 3
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 13 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: New Habits: How to Ensure They Stick – Part 2
— From Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear
Yesterday we learned about The Diderot Effect: how to use it positively to create new habits and to make sure they stick via habit stacking.
But I told you there was more to this, and this is what I want to share today. The concept is simple: if habit stacking increases the likelihood that your new habits will stick, then you can actually create a chain of new habits by stacking them all together, using one habit to cue the next one for the whole routine you want to implement.
The author offers the following routines as examples.
Morning routine:
- After I pour my morning cup of coffee, I will meditate for sixty seconds.
- After I meditate for sixty seconds, I will write my to-do list for the day.
- After I write my to-do list for the day, I will immediately begin my first task.
Evening routine:
- After I finish eating dinner, I will put my plate directly into the dishwasher.
- After I put my dishes away, I will immediately wipe down the counter.
- After I wipe down the counter, I will set out my coffee mug for tomorrow morning.
You get the idea. Very simple but immensely powerful.
There are also a few iterations of this basic stacking principle to further help you achieve a particular goal. One of those iterations, says Clear, is to “insert new behaviors into the middle of your current routines.”
For instance, he points out to a routine like this:
Wake up > Make my bed > Take a shower.
What if you wanted to instill in you the habit of reading every night? You could modify your habit stack by adding the following:
Wake up > Make my bed > Place a book on my pillow > Take a shower.
That one change would mean you’d have a book waiting for you to enjoy in the evening before you go to bed.
Another tip that Clear shares is that of creating rules to guide your future behavior. “It’s like you always have a game plan for which action should come next.” And he gives the following examples to illustrate this point:
- Exercise. When I see a set of stairs, I will take them instead of using the elevator.
- Social skills. When I walk into a party, I will introduce myself to someone I don’t know yet.
- Finances. When I want to buy something over $100, I will wait twenty-four hours before purchasing.
- Healthy eating. When I serve myself a meal, I will always put veggies on my plate first.
- Minimalism. When I buy a new item, I will give something away. (“One in, one out.”)
- Mood. When the phone rings, I will take one deep breath and smile before answering.
- Forgetfulness. When I leave a public place, I will check the table and chairs to make sure I don’t leave anything behind.
The most important thing is picking the right cue to initiate the action. Over time and repetition, the habit will be built. And by virtue of having stacked it, it has no choice but to stick.
And just as I promised that there would be more info on new habits today, tomorrow this miniseries will continue with how to set the cues for best results. So, please come back to continue learning about creating new habits and creating the optimal conditions for them to stick.
ACTION
TODAY: Look at your routines and determine when would be the best step to stack that new habit.
FUTURE: Start a document with your own set of rules to guide your behavior. As you run into a situation where you’d like to stack a habit, make a note of it in your document, so that you can have one repository of all these rules. You’ll eventually have them in your mind, yet initially, having this document as a backup will come in very handy.
Know someone who would like to read this?? Please share this post via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Creativity, Habits, Mindset, Miniseries, Planning, Tools
Links to other parts of this miniseries:
New Habits: How to Ensure They Stick – Part 2
New Habits: How to Ensure They Stick – Part 3
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 41 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: New Habits: How to Ensure They Stick – Part 1
— From Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear
As this year comes to an end, I’ve started thinking about the New Year, and the new habits that I want to establish for myself. With that in mind, I’ve taken a dive into books about habit formation.
I came across a new term, The Diderot Effect, via a story that James Clear, habit guru and author of Atomic Habits, tells in his book. In a nutshell, it goes like this: French philosopher, Denis Diderot, was the co-founder and writer of Encyclopédie, during the time of the Enlightenment. Despite this, he lived in poverty most of his life. His daughter was about to be married and, seeing that he could not pay for the wedding, he struck a deal with Russian Empress Catherine the Great, who bought his personal library for an enormous sum at the time and paid him a salary to act as her librarian.
Suddenly Diderot had money. He paid for his daughter’s wedding and bought himself a scarlet robe. His robe, apparently, was so beautiful, that it made every other one of his common possessions seem even more humble and out of place. Thus, he started replacing and upgrading his stuff: rugs, sculptures, furniture, etc.
“Diderot’s behavior is not uncommon. In fact, the tendency for one purchase to lead to another one has a name: the Diderot Effect… [and it] states that obtaining a new possession often creates a spiral of consumption that leads to additional purchases. You can spot this pattern everywhere. You buy a dress and have to get new shoes and earrings to match. You buy a couch and suddenly question the layout of your entire living room. You buy a toy for your child and soon find yourself purchasing all of the accessories that go with it.”
However, this does not necessarily have to be seen in a negative light. Clear writes, “Many human behaviors follow this cycle. You often decide what to do next based on what you have just finished doing. Going to the bathroom leads to washing and drying your hands, which reminds you that you need to put the dirty towels in the laundry, so you add laundry detergent to the shopping list, and so on. No behavior happens in isolation. Each action becomes a cue that triggers the next behavior.”
Why is this important?
Because, “when it comes to building new habits, you can use the connectedness of behavior to your advantage. One of the best ways to build a new habit is to identify a current habit you already do each day and then stack your new behavior on top.”
The author calls this habit stacking, and offers the following formula for it:
“After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT].”
Here are a few examples from Clear that will make it clear (Ha! I couldn’t resist…):
- Meditation. “After I pour my cup of coffee each morning, I will immediately meditate for one minute.”
- Exercise. “After I take off my work shoes, I will immediately change into my workout clothes.”
- Gratitude. “After I sit down to dinner, I will say one thing I’m grateful for that happened today.”
- Marriage. “After I get into bed at night, I will give my partner a kiss.”
- Safety. “After I put on my running shoes, I will text a friend or family member where I am running and how long it will take.”
“The key,” the author says, is to “tie your desired behavior into something you already do each day.” And this is how you ensure that the new habits you create will stick.
But there is more to this! Come back tomorrow for Part 2, as we will see the augmented, edited, and revised version of new-habit formation for even better results. You’ll love it!
In the meantime, what are some new habits that you’d like to establish in the New Year? Let me know in the comments here!
See you tomorrow. 🙂
ACTION
TODAY: Think about how The Diderot Effect can work in your favor. What new habits would you like to establish?
FUTURE: Whenever you want or need to establish a new habit, try habit stacking to ensure that it sticks. Come back for the next installments in this miniseries, as I will share some of Clear’s simple-yet-effective methods to make this happen.
Know someone who wants to make sure the new habits stick? Please share this post via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
